The Problem of Cultural Diversity in American Scene: a Quest for a Place in the Gentile World

In the twentieth century, the assimilation of the Jewish immigrants in America caused a crisis of identity, especially in the following generations. As a result of the Holocaust, the threat of ethnic annihilation and identity crisis of the Jewish people were the main concerns in the post-war period. In the literary world, many Jewish writers have adopted the problem of Jewish identity as their main theme. While some of these writers try to preserve and restore the Jewish heritage in their fiction, some others depict the identity crisis and the protest of the Jewish self's against traditional Jewishness in the American WASP society. Philip Roth, one of the prominent writers of the Jewish novel tradition, deals with the problematic aspects of being a Jewish in the multiculturalistic structure of America. His characters are usually not comfortable in their environment and they oscillate between the Jewish milieu and the gentile world to find a better place for themselves. This work aims to explore Roth's fiction, and tries to reveal the tensions that the Jewish self experiences as he interacts with both cultures.